Facebook Post Calls Fires Destroying Israel “Allah’s Revenge”

Four Arabs from the Palestinian Authority were arrested Thursday on suspicion of intentionally setting brush fires in the Jerusalem Corridor.

Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) officials said the agency will investigate the possibility that several of the fires were, in fact, terror attacks.

Earlier Thursday, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan suggested that up to half of the fires currently ravaging Israel were arson attacks. Erdan said high winds and dry conditions around the country meant a large forest fire could be started by a spark as small as a cigarette butt.

Arabic-language social media has been awash with celebratory cartoons, images and statements since the outbreak of fires Tuesday.

More than 220 fires have broken out since Tuesday, beginning with Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salam, a Jewish-Arab settlement near Bet Shemesh and spreading to other areas near Bet Shemesh, Mod’in, Judea and Samaria, the Jerusalem corridor, Haifa, Hadera, Zichron Yaakov, Umm al-Fahm, Lachish, Nesher, and the western Galilee.

Bayit Yehudi chairman and Education Minister Bennett declared, “Anyone who could even think of burning parts of the Land of Israel is not really connected to the land.”